In
by WhatIfImaMermaid
Summary: McCoy, Uhura, and this thing they have.


He's in the turbolift when the doors swish open, and she takes two seconds she does not have to debate whether she can get away with waiting for the next one. Of course, not only he's standing right there, in _her_ turbolift, but he also has the audacity of being _alone_ in it, which would make it absolutely ridiculous if she were to decline to enter.

She also wonders exactly how smudged the eyeliner she put on about nine hours ago is, only to immediately remind herself that the doctor has seen her covered in blood, regenerated two layers of skin on the entire left side of her face, and that he was right there, hand solid on the nape of her neck, that time she threw up bile for two days straight after Jim Idiot Kirk picked her a poisonous flower for her birthday.

Of course, that was _before_.

She steps in, cautiously.

"Doctor."

McCoy clears his throat. "Lieutenant."

He is looking anywhere but at her as she goes to stand by his side, and him being so blatantly embarrassed makes _her_ even more embarrassed, an awkward, vicious circle that really has her reevaluate her decisions. Her turbolift-riding decisions, of course. But many others, too. All the others. Like enlisting in Starfleet instead of becoming an interpreter for the UN like her father wanted, or insisting on being assigned to the Enterprise, or getting into an ill-advised pseudo-romantic relationship with her best friend for the better part of three years.

Not to mention that time she got a little tipsy and made out with said best friend's new boyfriend's best friend.

Which was yesterday, incidentally.

She sighs.

"I just—"

"About what—"

The ensuing silence is thick, prolonged, and painfully uncomfortable. Nyota's always had _fantastic_ timing.

McCoy clears his throat and stares at a spot behind her left shoulder. "Ladies first," he tells her, and she does not mean to throw him a sour look, but also cannot quite help herself.

At least, it actually makes his mouth curve into a smile, so that he looks a little less like he's awaiting execution.

"Ok, ok, sorry, listen…about yesterday, I…" He clears his throat. One deep breath. Clears his throat again. "I don't know how, if, um… I feel like we were probably both, you know, um, out of it and. But…"

He's _talking_ to the turbolift controls, if that's how this thing he's doing with his mouth can even be described, and the dusting of red on his cheeks is getting worse by the word, which fortunately he hasn't said that many of. Nevertheless, something in Nyota's comm officer heart softens at seeing this intelligent, indomitable, cantankerous man revert to the speech patterns of a (not particularly linguistically gifted) seven-year-old.

She puts her hand on his sleeve, and swallows her discomfort. "No need to make this weird, Leonard."

He finally looks at her, at least for a quarter of a second or so. "Right." His tone is gruff.

"We're both adults."

He snorts. "Yeah. The only ones on this clunker, I'm pretty sure."

She nods, because it's true. Except for the clunker part, of course. "Stuff like this happens all the time on starships."

This actually makes him raise one eyebrow and turn to her, arms crossed on his chest. "Does it? Never happened to _me_ before." He's mumbling. Nyota decides that he's probably just thinking out loud, and lets it go without an answer. It has nothing to do with the fact that it has never happened to her, either.

"It's fine. We were both on double shifts for the whole week, and sleep deprived, and we kept pouring each other that foul tasting drink, and—"

"Excuse me." He's scowling now. Also, he suddenly looks taller, and he was pretty tall to begin with. "What did you just say about my bourbon?"

"Nothing, just..." He stares at her expectantly. She shrugs. "That it could be improved."

No one does shockingly appalled quite like Leonard McCoy. " _How_? The corn mash is made with the best kernels, it's aged thirteen years—"

She shrugs again. "I'm just saying. It could really stand something to cover that weird leathery aftertaste." She bites her lip, thinking it though a little bit. "Maybe some lime? Or, Gaila used to make this awesome cocktail with raspberry puree…" She trails off once she catches his expression.

He's really, _really_ good at the whole shockingly appalled thing.

So good that she can't help but laugh, and now that she thinks about it, just last night, _before_ the… um, but after they had been drinking for a while, he mentioned to her that he really, really likes the way she laughs, which is probably the reason he immediately drops the horrified scowl and starts smiling, too.

He's very handsome. Particularly so when he smiles, but even when he doesn't. He's never been _not_ handsome, of course. He might not have Spock's cool grace or Jim's obnoxious, over the top charisma, but it's not as if Nyota hasn't noticed once or twice or seventy-three times, most of them well before last night.

Which must be what does it. Two people, who really, really like each others' smiles, standing less than two feet away in a semi-private space, and it's no surprise that it doesn't take more than a handful of seconds for Nyota to find herself pushed against the wall, her fingers laced in his hair for the second time in less than twenty-four hours.

No surprise at all.

No surprise that he smells _incredible_ , and that he feels really… _big_ , pressed against her belly, and those hands, _those hands_ are so large and wonderful at keeping her head still so that he can lick the inside of her mouth to both his and _her_ heart's content, and it's been years, decades, centuries since she's been kissed like this, except that it hasn't, because the same thing happened last night and then fifty more times today as she replayed it inside her head all throughout Alpha, finally something to focus on after weeks of travelling at warp and having nothing to do but try to ignore her captain checking out her best friend's ass.

He grunts.

She moans.

It doesn't get much better than this.

Unfortunately, it does get much worse, because they are still in the turbolift, which apparently other people wish to utilize, for no real reason, since there are perfectly functional jefferies tubes that can be used to travel from one deck to the other. _Illogical_.

And to be fair, Nyota's not the one who notices, too spellbound by the way his hand is resting on that not-well-defined zone between her butt and her lower back, and by that barely restrained sound he made as soon as it landed there. It's Leonard who realized that the lift is slowing down and steps back, a pained expression on his face, just in time for the doors to swish open and reveal.

James.

Fucking.

Kirk.

Beaming at them. "Hey! My two favorite people!"

He walks right in between them, turning to face the entrance of the lift and clapping their shoulders in the process.

Leonard elbows him in the ribs.

Nyota steps laterally, just out of reach.

"Get away from me," they both say at the same time.

Jim doesn't seem to mind, and chatters for the rest of the ride.

...

"What did they say?"

"I think they want us to turn around."

"Turn around?"

She tries to listen closely to what the person standing in front her is saying, but she only learned this language about… three hours ago? Maybe two and a half. The fact that it's a mix of gestures and grunts does not help, since it renders the universal translator basically useless (although, if you ask Nyota, there was no real reason for the doctor to rip his own out of his ear and throw it across the MedBay as soon as she informed him of the fact).

"In their culture, it's taboo for people of other species to see certain parts of their bodies." At least she thinks that that's what they're trying to communicate. That word they're using could either mean 'taboo' or 'celery'. She's kind of going by context.

Leonard sighs. There is a vein pulsating on his forehead, and it's been getting increasingly larger and bluer since the locals beamed up to MedBay to get some pretty straightforward treatment. He seems awfully close to losing it, but then he always does, and Nyota has to admit to herself that he's probably the only member of the senior crew who hasn't gone completely crazy yet.

Go figure.

"How am I supposed to treat them?"

"Um… they will describe the problem to us, and then you will tell them how to fix it?"

The vein. Even larger. And even bluer. "Are you out of your linguist mind?"

Annoyed, she puts her hands on his shoulders and forcibly turns complains a lot, of course, stuff like _and then what's next,_ _surgery via comm_ , _and to think that I actually went to med school for this_ , and _this puts a whole new spin on doctor-patient confidentiality_. But he does what Nyota tells him to, and yells the whole staff when they're not quick enough at bringing him what he needs, and then…

Then he just stands there, with a long-suffering look, pursing lips that she knows to be very soft, from countless kisses sneaked in the darkest corners of the least trafficked corridors (and once in a jefferies tube); and also very skilled, from that time he followed her in that storage room of Deck 3, propped her up on one of the shelves, and then slid down to kneel between her legs, eyes sweet, holding hers while she cupped his face and hair in her hands, until it was too much, too good, and it crashed into her, and she couldn't…

She shakes herself out of whatever _that_ was, and follows him in his office when their work is done.

Giggling, apparently.

"What's so goddamn funny?"

"It's just..." She really doesn't think of herself as a giggler. Usually. "You're pretty…" She fumbles for the correct word. She finds it, then she discards it, and then she fishes it back again, because really, if the shoe fits. "Cute. When you…" _Try to scowl an illness into remission. Terrify your patients into treatment compliance. Bark orders at your staff as if they were teenage kids playing on your lawn, fully aware that they are not even remotely intimidated by you, because you're the most kindhearted man I've ever met, and I've met quite a few_. "When you are being _you_."

He stares at her for at least five seconds.

"Take it back."

She starts giggling harder.

"Listen, lady, if you don't take it back I'm gonna have to do something drastic."

At this point, she needs to muffle the laughter with the back of her hand. "Such as?"

"I dunno. Maybe I'll write 'should of' on my next report. Or skimp out on the Oxford commas."

"No! Please." She puts her hands on his chest. "That's just mean."

"As long as it ain't _cute_."

It's not that she _wants_ a kiss, precisely. It's just that they're both here, less than a foot apart and he's so kissable, and if she goes on her toes and he angles his face down just an inch or so they mouths are perfectly aligned, and who is she to say no when it's already happening, and he's making that grunt in the back of his throat that must mean that he's enjoying it too?

No one. She is no one, currently melting into a puddle of no one at the feeling of Leonard's scratchy jaw, and the way he licks, and then softly bites the base of her neck, and the fact that his hands, the steadiest hands in the 'fleet, are shaking a little bit, as the always do when they—

Something small, likely made of plastic, falls on the floor a handful of feet away from them. It bounces, twice, and then rolls until it hits Nyota's boot. It's a stylus.

She expects, before raising her head to investigate where the stylus came from, to see Christine, or another one of the nurses, or maybe M'Benga. Which really, would be bad enough.

What she does _not_ expect is Spock.

Spock, who opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again. Remains like that for at least five seconds, during which Nyota is completely, painfully, acutely aware of Leonard's palm pressed on her lower back, and of her own fingers nestled between his black undershirt and his warm, broad shoulder.

What happened to guiltily breaking apart as soon as they've been found out?

Spock's cheeks are green when he finally regains some control of his vocal tract. "Experiment." He says, his voice uncharacteristically throaty, before stumbling out McCoy's office and of MedBay, without stopping to pick up the stylus that he dropped.

Nyota and Leonard exchange a glance.

"I think we broke Spock's motherboard."

"Years of tryin', and the answer was in front of me all along."

Nyota lets her forehead rest on Leonard's collarbone, shoulders shaking with silent laughter. "Oh my god. How bad is this?"

"Not as bad as when he tells Jim through that voodoo mind channel thing they have, which is, wait for it—"

Leonard's comm goes off and Nyota startles, quickly stepping away from him. _Now_ her stupid reflexes decide to kick in.

"Please, don't pick that up."

He snorts. "Are you kidding me? I know who I'm dealing with."

He tosses the comm on his desk and they just stand there, she smiling, he frowning, staring at each other in the middle of McCoy's office, until he suddenly finds his boots worthy of meticulous visual inspection.

"That's what you wanted, isn't it?"

She cocks her head. "What is?"

"For Spock to find out."

It's something in his tone, that makes her straighten her back. She replies slowly. "Not particularly, no. Why would I?"

He shrugs. "Well."

"Well?" She can feel her eyes narrow.

"I mean, how much of this is to piss Spock off? Not saying that you're doing it on purpose, but it's got to be a nice perk, right?"

Suddenly, there is something icy crawling up her spine. "You think I'm doing this to _piss Spock off_?"

"Well, no, not to piss him off. But to, you know. Show him that you've moved on?"

She inhales, trying to parse Leonard's words, to unravel the last ten seconds of conversation and figure out what exactly makes her the angriest. It's a clash of the titans, really.

"Is that why _you_ are doing this? To rile Spock up?" Something occurs to her, and the iciness spreads to her whole torso. "Is this some sort of competition with Kirk?"

"Hell, no!" He really does have the whole shockingly appalled expression down pat. "We both know that Jim's his own self-generating antimatter cloud of hubris. I try not to feed into it, if I can."

"Well, you're not the only person with agency on this ship. Why does me being with you have to be a reaction to Spock and Jim, and you being with me—"

"Because." He cuts her off, and it's loud, echoing off the bulkhead that surrounds his office. "Because you are," he gestures inchoately towards her, " _you_ , and I am…" his expression is pained until he closes his eyes, only to reopen them and shrug. "Me."

It has to be the one single most self-deprecating syllable anyone has ever uttered.

It has to be.

And she can tell that he's convinced of it, too.

Her anger drains immediately.

She purse her lips, looking to her right. There's a poster of Andorian anatomy on the wall, which is very well drawn, for sure, but absolutely useless, since currently there are exactly zero Andorians on the Enterprise. She wonders if it has some kind of sentimental values for Leonard, and finds that she is curious. She wants to know.

She wants to know _things_ , about this man.

"You know," she hesitates.

No matter that social communication is her trade, she is not the social butterfly she often pretends to be, and self-disclosure doesn't come easy, especially after years of having a member of the most insanely private specie in the known universe as the most important person in her life. But Leonard.

Leonard seems to be worth the effort.

She starts again. "You know, I had a, um, thing for you at the Academy."

She lifts her gaze to his, which is not easy. He's as still as she's ever seen him.

"A thing?"

She rolls her eyes. "Don't channel Spock, please."

"Hey. No need for insults."

She huffs a silent laugh. "Do you remember when I made Pilau for Gaila, and it turns out Orions and Cardamom don't exactly—" He is nodding, and massaging his temple just from the thought of it, and Nyota fondly remembers how exasperated he'd been with her for 'poisoning her damn roommate'. "Well, that night, you stayed in our room to watch over her, and we talked, we talked a lot, and I… I thought we had a… a moment." She swallows. "I remember thinking you might kiss me, and then I was hoping you would, but…" This. This is why she doesn't self-disclose that often. Because it's _damn_ hard. "I figured you were still hang up on your ex, or maybe I just misread you."

"No! No I…" He is looking at this boots again, and he doesn't look like he's finding this any easier than she is. At least there's that. "I thought about—" A deep breath. "I really didn't want to be another Jim Kirk."

She shakes her head. "You could never."

He's smiles a little. "Hey. No need for flattery, either."

This man. This man makes her laugh, and he makes her body sing, and she want to know _things_ about him.

"So. My point is. Screw Spock, and screw Jim, and screw their epic, predestined, Vulcan bond." She takes a step towards him, fingers plucking at the hem of his blue uniforms jersey. "I'm in, if you are."

He looks petrified for a moment, a moment that stretches long enough that she starts wondering if maybe she totally wasted that self-disclosure on him, and has her consider whether she's ever going to be able to reach out to anyone again. Then his hands are around her waist, large and warm, and she's not worried anymore.

"I really, really am."

She smiles into his chest, forehead on his sternum. No need to look up to see his expression, with the way his fingers are pressing into her skin through the uniform.

"Although." She lifts her head, curious. "I ain't ever double dating."

She goes on her toes, pressing a kiss on the corner of his mouth. "Don't worry. There's no way Spock would ever survive a double date."

His eyebrow quirks up. "Then again, where's the fun if we don't?"

She laughs, and then he kisses her.

And then she can't quite think anymore.


End file.
